[bryant]

Originally Posted by Lonman

Again! It's not a matter of just getting the next song cued up, I have the entire rotation cued up as well, as soon as someone hands me a slip, it goes in the rotation & it's cued in the computer. What I can DO with discs is something that is not able to do in Hoster at this time (at least for a smooth flowing transition and not a lot of abrupt stops of songs or dead air time) with discs, I can cue it up to certain time stamps to eliminate all unecessary aspects ie unnecessary intros, long manu screens before the music, etc.. So if there is 10 seconds of the manufacturer screen before the music starts, I cue it up to 10 seconds. One of my customers gave me a disc that had 20 seconds of manu screen before the music even started. In Hoster, you have to start it where the song starts. So get several songs that have that long cue screen & intros, that adds up time throughout the night - maybe not a lot but I can usually squeeze in 3-4 extra songs per night because of it - may not seem like a big deal, but in a large rotation it could mean getting through my last singers or not.
My singers are trained to get up when I call them or they may miss out their turn - 9 out of 10 times, on occasion I get stragglers, but not for the most part. The second a singer is done singing (words on the screen are over) - I use the rest of that song's outro to praise & get the next singer up. The next singer is usually up & ready BEFORE the outro to the last song is finished - then I fade into the new song, bringing the last song down & bringing the new song up! Another few seconds per song that adds up more time available to another singers time - especially if they are long outros like Comfortably Numb or Freebird. Songs that just end on the last word, well obviously there isn't much difference there, but these types of endings aren't all that common.
I don't know how to explain it any better, you would actually have to see it in action because you obviously don't believe me, but I can assure you, I can run a faster paced show with discs - as a matter of fact that was a concern when I decided to go with Hoster to begin with, it would slow me down & it has, not greatly, but noticeably. Been running karaoke since '92 with multiple players & have become quite speedy with the discs.

Yes, but I have people all the time verbally changing their mind, and sometimes right before their turn. I always say "No problem", in between songs I have a backup laptop playing pictures or videos, so there is never any dead time. Without hoster I could never do the above and make a show faster.

I agree with muzic man.